Hearst Bay Area Blog

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networks today. In the last two years alone, the platform has doubled its user base to reach the milestone of 700 Million users in 2017. The magic of visual storytelling is on the rise, and Instagram is leading the game.

The number of brands opting for business profiles has been on the rise as well. Today, more than 8M businesses are using business profiles with 1M monthly active advertisers reaching out to the right audience at the right time with compelling content and visuals.

The growth of business profiles can be attributed, in large part, to the introduction of the Business Analytics tool. The feature (available to profiles who opt to “try Instagram business tools”) now allows brands to track critical data such as impressions, reach, engagement, saves, likes, and comments. It also details demographic data along with details on Instagram promotions.

So how you can you grow your presence or market your brand on Instagram for success?

In this article, we share the best tactics, tools, and resources you can use to engage with your audience and grow your brand on Instagram.

1. Have A Theme For Your Instagram Profile

Instagram thrives on visuals. But, why do you need a visual theme?

Similar to the design of a website composed of a consistent imagery type, color palettes, and fonts, an effective Instagram theme caters to user expectations by enhancing their visual experience.

A theme also serves as a guide for your profile visitors to get a better understanding of your brand. It helps create visual coherence that communicates the purpose of your business in a matter of seconds.

Including a theme to your profile not only amplifies your brand’s visual presence but also lays down a path for visitors to convert to followers and potential customers.

Here are some ideas you can use to get started with an Instagram theme:

Experiment with color palettes, fonts, and patterns: Maintaining a color palette with complementing fonts and patterns can enhance your brand’s visual presence. You can either define a new one for your Instagram profile or use your brand’s current style. Inspiration: @thefrootilife

Use consistent colors/filters in all your photos: A secret ingredient behind the success of many brands and influencers are consistent colors/filters. Colors directly relate to emotion. As a result, you can elevate your brand’s profile for success by using the right colors in every imagery. By doing this, you’ll be able to influence users and communicate the brand's message consistently. Inspiration: @doyoutravel

Experiment with the border: Saliency has been an important branding strategy for years. By utilizing it, brands can go beyond higher recall and influence action. One way to create saliency on Instagram is by breaking the rules. Whether it’s experimenting with the border or the grid, saliency drives attention and can prove to be beneficial for your brand.Inspiration: @the.avantguardian

Try the checkerboard style: Practiced by many influencers and brands, the checkerboard style incorporates a strong visual hierarchy to your profile. Whether it’s by alternating between a color and a black and white image or a solid color and a compelling image, it grabs attention every time. Inspiration: @bossbabe.inc

2. Go Beyond Photos

While photos generate high engagement on Instagram, they aren’t the only way brands develop an engaged following.

Here are some interesting ways brands go beyond photos:

Videos: There was a time when Instagrammers had the option to post videos that could only be 15 seconds long. However, that quickly changed. In early 2016, Instagrammers gained access to videos that could be up to a minute in length. Since then, brands have latched on to the format to capture their audience’s attention and continue to do so in many creative ways.

Boomerangs: Fun and engaging videos on loop, boomerangs are a definite attention grabber. As Instagram says, “It’s not a photo. It’s not a gif. It’s a Boomerang.” Boomerangs provide an interesting way to experiment with motion on Instagram.

Instagram stories: Stories disappear in 24 hours. While that might sound limiting at first, it isn’t. Bringing in a killer combination photos, videos, boomerangs, and rewind, you can be as edgy as you want with Stories. For brands, Stories excel the most by providing them an option to add a link.

Apart from the Instagram bio section, this is the only (organic) way to drive traffic to your website, get people to download a resource, or simply watch a video on YouTube. With Instagram stories, the possibilities are endless. Follow @GeneralElectric, @Gopro, and @Apple for excellent use of Stories.

By experimenting with the format, you open up to creativity and get a chance to provide richer Instagram experiences to your followers.

3. Engage With Your Audience

You have developed a master plan for Instagram, put together your brand’s strategy, and have posted relevant content on your profile. But you don’t see any increase in your followers, likes, views, or comments. Sound familiar?

While posting relevant content is important, it isn’t sufficient to build a strong Instagram presence. One way brands and influencers keep growing their following is by consistently engaging with their target audience.

Engagement is an important metric when measuring Instagram success. You might have 1000 impressions but only ten likes on your post, which poses two important questions:

Is your content relevant?

Do you have the right audience?

Assuming we know that the content is super relevant for the audience we aim it to reach, the problem then lies with building the right audience.

Here are four ways you can achieve this:

Use hashtags: While this is basic, it is surprising how many brands miss the hashtag train. Hashtags help put your brand out in the world. They bring in more profile visitors, more comments, and more likes — all of which are super targeted and relevant. An excellent way to find the hashtags related to your brand is by typing it out a main hashtag in the search box and let Instagram auto suggest the most relevant ones.

For example, if you are into travel, type in #Travel in the search box, and you’ll see top results such as #travel, #Travelblogger, #Travels, #traveling, #traveler, and much more! Incorporating these hashtags while posting an update will increase your brand’s visibility.

Find a relevant hashtag and engage: In the same example of #travel, you’d find thousands of photos that are uploaded every second. If you were a brand focused on clothing for women travelers, you’d discover the hashtag #Girlswhotravel, find the most recent photos, and comment or like their photos. An important consideration is to be highly relevant and contextual. So instead of saying “Great photo,” mention what’s special about it. Example: “Great click, @username! We love Budapest too! :)”

Pick a location and engage: Is your brand focused on specific location(s)? If it is, search for your location as a way to garner quality engagement. On the Instagram app, go to search and pick the "search by location" option. Type in the place of business interest, and you’ll have a list of people Instagramming at that specific location. By providing them value in the form of a tip or by engaging with them by giving a compliment, your business can break through the clutter!

Interact with your current follower base: The most engaged audience you have is the one that’s following you. Finding avenues to feature your top fan, posting fan stories and testimonials, or simply replying back to their comment in time can give your brand an edge over others.

Investing time and effort to engage can deliver impressive results. Use the tips above or a combination of them to reach your target audience.

4. Leverage Influencers

Influencer marketing has seen a tremendous rise in the past year with brands pumping a large amount of money in celebrity endorsements and influencer engagements.

However, you don’t require a massive amount to leverage influencer marketing. In fact, most of it can come for free.

In a study done by Collective Bias, it was found that nearly a third (30%) of consumers are more likely to purchase a product endorsed by a non-celebrity blogger than a celebrity. Among them, 70% of millennials had the strongest preference for such “peer” endorsements.

A post shared by Robert & Christina (@newdarlings) on Aug 7, 2017 at 6:54pm PDT

The power of micro -influencers is enormous.

To find a micro-influencer in your niche, repeat the search by location and search by hashtag tactics. You’ll see the top 9 posts in a particular time frame. Visit the profile of these nine influencers and find out their engagement rates, followers, and if they have the right audience.

Once you have built a list of influencers, the next step is to initiate a conversation.To initiative conversation with an influencer, you can either send them a direct message or email them if they have it as a contact option.

Here are some ways you can partner with a micro — influencer on Instagram:

Send them a personalized product sample or freebie.

Provide a discount code in exchange for a post (optional) on their profile.

Provide them a referral code which they can use to gain goodies or discounts.

If you are looking to develop an engaged audience or drive conversions to your website, influencer marketing on Instagram is the most cost effective way to do it.

The possibilities of content on Instagram are endless. It’s all about experimenting and remixing content from time to time to find the ones that resonate with your audience the most.

Here’s a list of some top tools that can help you scale up your content production and create posts that resonate:

Photography & Editing: VSCO, Snapseed, Adobe Lightroom, Shapical

Video: Animoto, Adobe Premiere Pro, iMovie

Design: Canva, Photoshop, Piktochart

Quotes: Goodreads, Brainy Quote

Free stock photos: Unsplash, Pexels

Scheduling: Hootsuite, Buffer

Most importantly, marketing your brand on Instagram should be fun! Allow yourself to enjoy the process and get creative with your posts. People will be able to tell if your posts seem forced. So, harness your brand's voice, develop a theme and create content your audience will be delighted to see.

What are some of your favorite ways to engage your followers on Instagram? What's your favorite brand to follow on Instagram? We'd love to hear from you in the comments section!